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Japan?s quest for regional order-building has a mixed historical record. During the first half of the 20th century, the country pursued its vision of a Japan-centered regional order, termed as the Grater East Asia Co-prosper Sphere, excluding the United States, only to bring total catastrophe to the region. Four decades later in the early 1990s, it conceptualized the ?multi-tiered? structure of regional security, with the US-Japan alliance as the linchpin, and rather quietly promoted it with some success. Despite such stark contrasts, the two instances show one commonality?Japan was an ascending power. With this backdrop, the paper examines Japan?s current attitude toward the question of the emerging regional order. Is Japan, now far from being an ascending power thanks to decade-long economic stagnation, and in the face of a new, rapidly ascending power, China, still committed to regional order-building? If so, does Japan still maintain a ?multi-tiered? regional order, in which the position of China is unspecified. Or has the country conceived of a new kind of regional order to reflect the current power balance in Asia? Through addressing these questions, the paper seeks to articulate the factors that shape Japan?s perspective of a regional security order and assess the possible implications for the country?s relations with other regional countries, especially China, overall intra-regional relations, and the ongoing discussion on the recently proposed East Asian Community. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the role of the Japan's Official Development Assistance (ODA) in establishing cooperative security in Northeast Asia. It explains that the idea of cooperative security involves cooperation based on the definition of scholars Ashton B. Carter, William J. Perry and John D. Steinbuner. The strategy of cooperative security as a realistic approach is also tackled. It argues that the ODA can establish its security through bilateral and regional relations in the region.

The discusses the involvement of Japan in regional integration and Asian crisis management, with a particular focus on the case study of Thailand. The factor that force Japan to involve in rescuing the crisis-devastated economies lies in a growing economic integration and interdependence of the continent. Also demonstrated is the emergence of Asian regionalism under Japanese economic leadership. It adds that the government of Japan showed its commitments to industrial transformation in Thailand.

In the wake of the Asian financial crisis, Japan has made a significant foreign economic policy shift in the way in which it approaches Asian regional institutional building in financial and monetary cooperation. Prior to the Asian financial crisis, Japan ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]